


Memories

by Timey_Whimey_Avenging_Detectives



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 21:17:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timey_Whimey_Avenging_Detectives/pseuds/Timey_Whimey_Avenging_Detectives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The childhood memories of a Sunday night dinner at my grandparents house, written five years previous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories

Memories

I remember their house like it was yesterday, the crisp green grass of their lawn covered in fresh morning dew and the haphazard flowerbed my grandmother would ‘get around to tomorrow’. The willow tree my father planted casting a cool looming shadow over the ascending steps to the door. Ringing the door bell and listening to the echo as my grandparents argued over who had to answer it.

My grandma always won. 

The way the door creaked always reminded me of a horror movie, but the exuberant smile on my grandpa’s time-worn face always remedied the feeling. If that didn’t work their dog Timmy, a hyperactive fuzz ball who always made me laugh would bound out the front door and tackle me. 

Once inside the hall I could travel in two directions: straight ahead through the pasty skin coloured hallway into the small kitchen where my grandma would normally be cooking on the same stove that had been in the house for sixteen years, using the same recipes. I could already taste the tomato soup in the air and the salt-ridden sardines for the sandwiches. The laminate floor was ice on my naked feet and the ugliest brown I had ever seen, too. The tiny square table for two sat against the window that looked out on the back yard framed with milky cream lace curtains. The cupboards, filled to the brim with food, lined the walls far above my head like skyscrapers. 

The other direction from the hall in which I could travel was into the living room on my left. The olive green shag carpet between my toes reminded me of running through grass in bare feet and made me want to roll in it. My grandpa sits in the chair by the door. The floral couch beside it is under a big window gazing out at the street. A rectangular table sits like an island in the middle of an olive green sea. A red burnt brick fireplace stands grand in the center of the opposite wall. A large autumn painting hangs above it, with greens that twin the curtains on the window and the second window in the adjoining dining room. The wall near the hallway has a large oak record player with cupboards on either side with my grandma’s over-stuffed floral chair that matches the couch. 

The dining room holds a mountain of a table filled with chairs and a crystal chandelier that glimmers like the sun casting light over the room. It makes me feel like a queen in her royal dining room. On Sunday nights my grandma will set the table with her finest mismatched china set and all my family will gather around the table laughing and eating roast and mashed potatoes. I can smell them baking along with her green trees and cheese sauce. I hear the wives and lady cousins in the kitchen and can almost see my uncles, dad and grandpa on the couches watching hockey or racing on the tiny TV across the room. 

The china cabinet is another world as I gaze through the glass at the figurines and china dolls encased inside come to life. The glass slipper like Cinderella’s sits majestically as a center piece shining with promise of my life to come. I move through the kitchen and down the hall to the linen cupboard, jam-packed with sheets and patterns for my grandmother’s sewing. I run my hand over the paper thin and delicate as glass. One day she will teach me how to sew. The room beside the closet was my aunts. As I step through the door I travel back in time to Barbie’s with home made dresses and tin doll-houses, metal baby carriages whose wheels squeak when you push them and dolls that are older than me with china heads. 

My little sister looks up at me with chocolate eyes, full of hope and wonder. I sit and begin to tell a story. As I speak, the words change the room around us into our own world our own place that we can shape and change full of magic. 

As I leave the old house with a backwards glance I spy a small sparkle in the window, magic.


End file.
